User:Beastie Bot/Stage One/test
| Rodrigues Solitaire | |
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| Genus: | Pezophaps Strickland, 1848
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| Species: | P. solitaria
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| Binomial name | |
| Pezophaps solitaria (Gmelin, 1789)
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The Rodrigues Solitaire (Pezophaps solitaria) was a flightless member of the pigeon family endemic to Rodrigues, Mauritius. It was a close relative of the Dodo, and of the Nicobar Pigeon.
It was first recorded by François Leguat, the leader of a group of French Huguenots who colonised the island from 1691 to 1693. He described the bird in some detail, including its solitary nesting behaviour. The Huguenots praised the birds for their flavour, especially the young ones.
Due to hunting and predation by introduced cats the birds soon became scarce, and when Cossigny attempted to get a specimen in 1755 none could be found. The Rodrigues Solitaire probably became extinct sometime in the 1760s; the exact date is somewhat difficult to determine because similar as with the dodo's Dutch name dodaers, the name "solitaire" was transferred to other birds of solitary habits (namely, to the enigmatic Oiseau bleu, a bird related to the Purple Swamphen) as the original species became more and more hard to find. See also Réunion Solitaire.
A large number of bones of the bird have been collected, but there are no mounted specimens. Solitaires are distinguished by an unusual large, gnarled knob of bone at the base of the thumb. In life, this knob would have been covered by a thick layer of skin and used as a weapon (a similar, smaller thumb knob is seen in Canada geese). Observations of the solitaire indicate that breeding pairs were highly territorial; presumably they settled disputes by striking each other with the wings.
Living relative[edit]
Dr Alan Cooper and Dr Beth Shapiro from Oxford's Henry Wellcome Ancient Biomolecules Centre, Dr Dean Sibthorpe, Dr Andrew Rambaut, Dr Graham Wragg, Dr Olaf Bininda-Emonds and Dr Patricia Lee from Oxford's Department of Zoology, and Dr Jeremy Austin from the Natural History Museum, London, carried out research in 2000-2002 by extracting tiny fragments of Dodo DNA. The samples were taken from the only surviving Dodo specimen with soft tissues remaining - the 300 year old 'Alice in Wonderland' specimen in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. DNA was also extracted from a Solitaire bone excavated from a cave on Rodrigues Island. The results of this analysis showed that, as expected, the Dodo and Solitare were very closely related to each other. However, rather than belonging to a separate family from the pigeons, the DNA results showed that the Dodo and Solitaire actually belong inside the pigeon family, and most closely related to the Nicobar Pigeon, Caloenus nicobarica.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- "Pezophaps solitaria". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2004. 2004.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|assessors=ignored (help); Unknown parameter|downloaded=ignored (help) Database entry includes justification for why this species is listed as extinct